After more than six weeks of government shutdown -- the longest in U.S. history -- both House and Senate leadership have landed on a bipartisan bill they believe can muster votes to reopen the Department of Homeland Security.
Meanwhile, President Trump indicated he would go around Congress to fund DHS, saying Thursday that he would sign an order to pay all DHS employees who have gone without paychecks during a record-long partial government shutdown that has reached 48 days.
The bipartisan bill appears to be revitalized from one House Republicans dismissed as "a joke" last Friday. It does not include the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement that Republicans were holding out for, but it also does not address ICE reforms that Democrats were demanding.
The bill does, however, restore funding for the Transportation Security Administration, which had been caught in the political crossfire, causing TSA workers to go without pay for more than six weeks. The resulting resignations and job callouts due to "illness" escalated quickly without congressional resolution to fund DHS and get TSA paid.
Lines stretched as long as four hours in airports like Bush Intercontinental in Houston and Jackson-Hartsfield in Atlanta in the final days before President Trump intervened to order DHS to pay TSA workers.
Backpay began to arrive to some TSA workers as early as March 31. Most workers reported check amounts for two, two-week pay periods. Some reimbursements were problematic, though, with workers reporting they didn't get fully paid retroactively and were waiting for more. The other waiting game earlier this week was to understand when that next payment would come, since the facility for that was not specifically addressed.
The current congressional bill would answer that question, fully funding TSA workers as Senate and House representatives hammer out the details on ICE funding, which has been sent to a parallel reconciliation process. The current bill would fund DHS through September.
The promise of backpay earlier this week was enough to get TSA agents back to work in critical roles. Even on Monday, security lines at heavily impacted airports had smoothed. By Wednesday, lines were down to just a few minutes, though the traveling public, according to several news reports out of Houston and Atlanta, was still wary and arriving very early for their flights.
The bipartisan bill is likely to pass on Thursday, despite the two-week congressional recess. They are scheduled for a special session on Thursday morning in which they are able to take up stalled legislation, approve as long as no one objects and move such bills to the desk of the president, who has indicated he will sign it.
What happens after Sept. 30 isn't known. The bill does not bake in any protections for TSA workers who have experienced two lengthy government shutdowns in the last 6 months.
Source: Business Travel News